Thursday, August 05, 2004

DDN: Dem Convention Was A Beauty Pageant

People just don’t seem to care much about the talent of women who are entered in what everybody thinks of as a beauty pageant, no matter what anybody else says.

Maybe it’s all part of the same phenomenon as what’s happening to political conventions. No, really. Hear this out.

Sen. John Kerry gives a speech at the Democratic convention that blows away the political community, which had heretofore considered him boring, lifeless. So the assumption becomes that by proving himself not so boring, he gained politically. Then the polls come out showing that — even though his speech was the most watched event at the convention — he got little or no boost.

Maybe people just don’t care whether he’s boring. Maybe what they care about is whether he can run the country. And maybe they see no more connection between that and his speech-making ability than they see between talent and beauty.

Then there’s this: When the conventions stopped being the places where politicians fight about issues and decide who will be nominated for president, they stopped having much appeal to the public. They came to be seen — rightly — as something other than news, which is what people used to tune in for.

Ahh...now THAT's a likely excuse for the no bounce convention. Sure...